The invention relates broadly to the problem of filling a furnace without permitting gas and dust to escape freely into the ambient atmosphere.
More specifically, the invention relates to the problem of lifting off the cover of a furnace opening, filling the interior of the furnace with a charge of moist or preheated coal, and then replacing the cover, without permitting gas and dust to escape freely into the ambient atmosphere.
Still more specifically, the invention relates to the problem of lifting off the covers, charging and then reclosing successive ones of the furnaces in a battery of furnaces, without permitting gas and dust to escape freely into the ambient atmosphere.
When filling the successive furnace chambers of a battery of coke furnaces with preheated coal, a great amount of gas and dust escapes into the atmosphere. This escape of dust and gas is environmentally detrimental and presents a serious health hazard to persons working in the vicinity of such a battery of coke furnaces. The known arrangements for counteracting this escape of dust and gas, such as those incorporating steam jet nozzles in the furnace feed pipe and those incorporating suction ventilating devices, have not proved completely satisfactory.
West German patent application Ser. No. 2,060,677 discloses an arrangement for charging coke ovens with dry, sometimes preheated coal. This arrangement constitutes an improvement over prior arrangements, in so far as the undesired release of dust and gas during the charging operation is concerned. However, this known arrangement has the disadvantage that it cannot prevent the escape of a very considerable amount of dust and gas during the time interval between the completion of the filling operation and the reclosing of the furnace filling inlet.